The reason that prices for grains other than corn are also going up is twofold: firstly because of rising demand (from China and India mostly as their economies take off) and a little thing called 'cross price elasticity of supply' which means that if the price of a product goes up, the price of substitutes and near substitutes also rise.
At this point it is mostly reason two, but reason one will become more important in the future and it is realised that ethanol sourced corn isn't actually greenhouse friendly in any case, and because of the impact on food prices. And eventually 2nd gen ethanol production will take off, although I notice that the article just talked about area, not economic feasibility. Algae and bacterial sources of ethanol have been looked at for nearly thirty years, but nobody has found a way to do it profitably.
The corn used for ethanol is subsidised too. its just that the subsidy is higher than for food grain. Thus the farmers raise the GM corn that is not as good for food as the ordinary corn (but ends up in corn syrup anyway).
From the same crowd that gave you the Jaguar, Rover and Leyland, the comet jet airliner but first of all the titanic.
Yes, the British are very good at maintaining traditions.
err, I was being sarcastic.
I was replyng to an earlier post that was implying that it is in Apple's interests for DRM were to be same as microsoft's.
For some reason a lot of people think that the ITS is an end in itself rather than a functionality expansion device for ipods. They forget that the popularity of ITS is due to the popularity of ipods. I can't see amazon being a threat to that. Amazon would only be a problem for apple if it used wma and was able to popularise that format for downloadable music. Not going to happen as everyone wants ipods.
yes DRM is a dead end, but the error in your argument is that it you are saying it is apple that wants the DRM, rather than the labels.
As far as apple goes, it's any system but a DRM lockin to WMA. That would have killed Apple, or more specifically Mac OSX.
You could argue that the whole (original) reason for the ipod and ITS was to prevent microsoft controlling AV on computers.
That's why ipods don't play WMA, DRMed or not.
Apple couldn't care less about DRM, and it is only on ITS because the labels required it. I wouldn't be surpised if Jobs announces that itunes is going DRM free next week.
However, if the labels do not allow apple to have DRM free on ITS, I can otherwise see Apple eventually making a deal with Amazon to allow itunes to act as a front end to the amazon store. Amazon makes money, apple's software costs are covered by the click thru referral income, and it still gets to have itunes as the gateway to the ipod experience. Labels lose.
Of course, the only risk here to the consumer is that Amazon is probably quite happy to up the cost of new releases well above 99 cents, which is of course, what the labels want.
I suspect the idea is to use short term discounting at amazon to erode the ITMS market share.
Once amazon has a significant slab of the market, the record companies would only release new songs exclusively on amazon at a higher price. ITMS would eventually become the repository for the old stuff, little more than an archive, and the new stuff only gets released on amazon at a higher price.
This scenario would continue until Jobs gives in and agrees to higher prices on ITMS.
This whole situation is only possible because a digital song is not a finite good.
a straw man argument? you are being too kind. it is the same as "so when did you stop beating your wife".
The statement was purely about shutting down any opposition to the proposed Bill. You are against a compulsory requirement for ISP filtering that you the user would have to opt out of? You must be a rock spider then, and if you opt out, then you obviously like to fiddle with the kiddies.
Absolutely odious. But then the ALP has had a bit of practice: for the last thirty years, anybody daring to question some rather poor performing indigenous policies was routinely labeled racist.
A music subscription service for me (and, it seems, the majority of consumers) is an extremely poor value proposition. Even for movies it would be a poor proposition for me, although it may be appealing to a larger group of consumers than music subscription services. An a la carte rental service could be accessed by me, though.
I also agree with the poster that said that the extras on a lot of other brand MP3 players are not relevant. My walkman phone has an fm radio, and I have used it once - the annoying radio jockey was enough to make me remember why I wanted MP3 player features on the phone.
And if you were to place a 4gb zen beside a 4 gb nano, and then pick them both up, you will realise why the zen is not number one. Then itunes is pretty easy to use, and has the least oppressive DRM. BTW you are not 99% locked in to itunes.
I don't own an ipod, having chosen an alternative that suited my circumstances better. But that does not prevent me from understanding why the ipod is most popular.
well, IMHO the biggest reason sharepoint sucks the big one is that you have to pay extra. Although I must say that the very ability to collaborate in google apps (and the clamour for it across regional offices) has forced the poorly educated dinosaurs that run the IT department (there are alternatives to microsoft?) to at least explore sharepoint. Haven't made it available yet though....
Interesting that nobody has commented yet on the proposed ability to rip a physical dvd onto an ipod that is apparently part of the fox deal.
So how will it work? Will the dvd contain an ipod/appletv version of the movie wrapped in fairplay DRM, or will itunes insert it for you when itunes recognises the dvd as one it is authorised to rip?
Well the collaboration features would be a plus over MS office, particularly for an organisation like mine that has a lot of regional offices. That said, my workplace is not prepared to have its data on an outside server, so google apps is a non starter.
Of curse the real reason for this research was not looking at how the asteroid impact happened, but modelling a small nuclear airburst.
This is the way the scientists get to leak the results of their research./tin foil wearing moonbat.
that's pretty good speculation. I would also say, though, that there is a key phrase: "explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, consumer, and enterprise communications."
To me that means that cisco also got what it wanted. Access to the consumer market backend through products like the appletv.
is that apple has announced a new version of itunes (7.1)
No doubt one reason is for the release of the appletv, but what other hardware goodness could an update be for?
Re:Philip Adams is no scientist
on
Water From Wind
·
· Score: 1
Phat Phil is certainly no scientist or engineer, but I have to disagree with you on his quality as a broadcaster or essayist, this chap hasn't had an original thought since 1975.
Anyway, this is clearly snake oil, the bloody pantent on this scam has already lapsed.
Slashdot Mirror
The reason that prices for grains other than corn are also going up is twofold: firstly because of rising demand (from China and India mostly as their economies take off) and a little thing called 'cross price elasticity of supply' which means that if the price of a product goes up, the price of substitutes and near substitutes also rise. At this point it is mostly reason two, but reason one will become more important in the future and it is realised that ethanol sourced corn isn't actually greenhouse friendly in any case, and because of the impact on food prices. And eventually 2nd gen ethanol production will take off, although I notice that the article just talked about area, not economic feasibility. Algae and bacterial sources of ethanol have been looked at for nearly thirty years, but nobody has found a way to do it profitably. The corn used for ethanol is subsidised too. its just that the subsidy is higher than for food grain. Thus the farmers raise the GM corn that is not as good for food as the ordinary corn (but ends up in corn syrup anyway).
From the same crowd that gave you the Jaguar, Rover and Leyland, the comet jet airliner but first of all the titanic. Yes, the British are very good at maintaining traditions.
err, I was being sarcastic. I was replyng to an earlier post that was implying that it is in Apple's interests for DRM were to be same as microsoft's. For some reason a lot of people think that the ITS is an end in itself rather than a functionality expansion device for ipods. They forget that the popularity of ITS is due to the popularity of ipods. I can't see amazon being a threat to that. Amazon would only be a problem for apple if it used wma and was able to popularise that format for downloadable music. Not going to happen as everyone wants ipods.
slaps head.
feel better now?
yes, and one of the reasons to choose a motorbike was the cost of a car in the past. That particular reason has just been substantially eroded.
As far as apple goes, it's any system but a DRM lockin to WMA. That would have killed Apple, or more specifically Mac OSX. You could argue that the whole (original) reason for the ipod and ITS was to prevent microsoft controlling AV on computers. That's why ipods don't play WMA, DRMed or not.
Apple couldn't care less about DRM, and it is only on ITS because the labels required it. I wouldn't be surpised if Jobs announces that itunes is going DRM free next week. However, if the labels do not allow apple to have DRM free on ITS, I can otherwise see Apple eventually making a deal with Amazon to allow itunes to act as a front end to the amazon store. Amazon makes money, apple's software costs are covered by the click thru referral income, and it still gets to have itunes as the gateway to the ipod experience. Labels lose.
Of course, the only risk here to the consumer is that Amazon is probably quite happy to up the cost of new releases well above 99 cents, which is of course, what the labels want.
I suspect the idea is to use short term discounting at amazon to erode the ITMS market share. Once amazon has a significant slab of the market, the record companies would only release new songs exclusively on amazon at a higher price. ITMS would eventually become the repository for the old stuff, little more than an archive, and the new stuff only gets released on amazon at a higher price. This scenario would continue until Jobs gives in and agrees to higher prices on ITMS. This whole situation is only possible because a digital song is not a finite good.
a straw man argument? you are being too kind. it is the same as "so when did you stop beating your wife". The statement was purely about shutting down any opposition to the proposed Bill. You are against a compulsory requirement for ISP filtering that you the user would have to opt out of? You must be a rock spider then, and if you opt out, then you obviously like to fiddle with the kiddies. Absolutely odious. But then the ALP has had a bit of practice: for the last thirty years, anybody daring to question some rather poor performing indigenous policies was routinely labeled racist.
A music subscription service for me (and, it seems, the majority of consumers) is an extremely poor value proposition. Even for movies it would be a poor proposition for me, although it may be appealing to a larger group of consumers than music subscription services. An a la carte rental service could be accessed by me, though. I also agree with the poster that said that the extras on a lot of other brand MP3 players are not relevant. My walkman phone has an fm radio, and I have used it once - the annoying radio jockey was enough to make me remember why I wanted MP3 player features on the phone. And if you were to place a 4gb zen beside a 4 gb nano, and then pick them both up, you will realise why the zen is not number one. Then itunes is pretty easy to use, and has the least oppressive DRM. BTW you are not 99% locked in to itunes. I don't own an ipod, having chosen an alternative that suited my circumstances better. But that does not prevent me from understanding why the ipod is most popular.
well, IMHO the biggest reason sharepoint sucks the big one is that you have to pay extra. Although I must say that the very ability to collaborate in google apps (and the clamour for it across regional offices) has forced the poorly educated dinosaurs that run the IT department (there are alternatives to microsoft?) to at least explore sharepoint. Haven't made it available yet though....
Interesting that nobody has commented yet on the proposed ability to rip a physical dvd onto an ipod that is apparently part of the fox deal. So how will it work? Will the dvd contain an ipod/appletv version of the movie wrapped in fairplay DRM, or will itunes insert it for you when itunes recognises the dvd as one it is authorised to rip?
Well the collaboration features would be a plus over MS office, particularly for an organisation like mine that has a lot of regional offices. That said, my workplace is not prepared to have its data on an outside server, so google apps is a non starter.
Actually, a movie about noah's ark might be..good. think about it.
Of curse the real reason for this research was not looking at how the asteroid impact happened, but modelling a small nuclear airburst. This is the way the scientists get to leak the results of their research. /tin foil wearing moonbat.
that's pretty good speculation. I would also say, though, that there is a key phrase: "explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, consumer, and enterprise communications." To me that means that cisco also got what it wanted. Access to the consumer market backend through products like the appletv.
is that apple has announced a new version of itunes (7.1) No doubt one reason is for the release of the appletv, but what other hardware goodness could an update be for?
Phat Phil is certainly no scientist or engineer, but I have to disagree with you on his quality as a broadcaster or essayist, this chap hasn't had an original thought since 1975. Anyway, this is clearly snake oil, the bloody pantent on this scam has already lapsed.